THE EVENTS of the previous 48 hours shaped a match that, on paper, looked set to be a tight contest given the teams' proximity in the lower reaches of the league.

But Leicester went into the game on a high after the arrival of milti-millionaire Milan Mandaric who immediately promised to lead them back to the Premiership.

Meanwhile City approached the game knowing that the man theoretically in charge was living on borrowed time - even though the board had not got round to telling him he was to be replaced.

The players were keen to give the popular Adrian Heath a good send off in his last match.

But once Geoff Horsfield had fired the Foxes in front as early as the eighth minute, there was no way back.

A second and third quickly followed in the 18th and 26th minutes, as midfielder Andy Johnson and Horsfield, again, prospered amid yet more dreadful defending from the Sky Blues who looked back to their previously fragile selves that had cost Micky Adams his job.

But weighing up the circumstances, there couldn't have been a more contrasting build-up to what should have been a blood and thunder local derby, and the mindset of the players from either side were clearly a million miles apart.

The City team were bitterly upset by the way their manager had been treated so disrespectfully, having picked up their morning papers to read that a new man was set to be unveiled, and tried to harness their anger into a positive force.

Sadly, however, their task - which would have been hard enough under normal circumstances against the backdrop of a whipped up Walkers Stadium - proved too difficult as they lost focus on their individual jobs in hand and all semblance of shape that had proved so effective the week before.

Players lost sight of their runners and Leicester's crisp-passing forwards got at them at will to leave the back four at sixes and sevens once more.

Robert Page, who appeared to be more affected by recent events than most, had a difficult time both on and off the field as Horsfield peeled away from him to head home the first and turned him in the box for the second, after which a number of City fans took to booing him for a short period, during which time they sang the absent Michael Doyle's name aloud.

But it would be unfair to single out one player, and had other people not got closer to their markers and cut out the supply then the centre-back would not have been put in such positions.

The Sky Blues made a fist of the second half when Kevin Kyle added a bit of muscle up front.

But home keeper Paul Henderson pulled off a couple of decent saves to deny Leon McKenzie to match the heroics from Andy Marshall who saved his side from a humiliating score-line with a string of fine saves.

"Our first half performance was very poor, particularly in terms of the defence," said Heath.

"They had two front men who we couldn't handle and there were too many crosses coming into the box and we were second best in our half of the pitch on everything for the first 26 minutes.

"We didn't win a tackle, didn't win enough headers and didn't get tight to people, so pretty much how you want to describe it, we were pretty bad at most things.

"The second half was a little bit more like it but in terms of the day, I think Leicester won comfortably to be honest."

Heath, who still hadn't been told what his position was on Saturday night, left with his dignity intact, safe in the knowledge that he, at least, had conducted himself in a professional manner throughout the charade that has been his supposed six-game trial period.

Resigned to the fact that he would finally get the call on Sunday, rather than an uncomfortable face-to-face encounter with the powers that be, he left Leicester unsure whether he would see the players on Monday morning, but prepared to walk away from Coventry City with his head held high.